The Winter Horses(6)
Max had to admit that the German was an excellent rider. The captain was a different man on a horse: he was patient and understanding and sufficiently relaxed in the saddle to always get the best out of the animal. It was plain to see why he had been picked for an Olympic equestrian team. To watch him ride a horse was to observe a perfect partnership between man and animal. Sometimes the captain put his face against Molnija’s nose and talked to him as if he were a lover, and he always brought the horse a little treat—an apple, a carrot, or a couple of sugar lumps.
One day in December, Captain Grenzmann said to Max as he sprang up into the saddle, “Molnija. Does it mean anything, Max? Or is it just a name like Boris or Ivan?”
“It means ‘lightning,’ sir.”
That seemed to please the captain, for he smiled and patted Molnija’s neck fondly.
“How very appropriate,” he said, and when Max looked baffled, he took hold of the collar badge on his greatcoat and leaned toward the old man.
“Are you blind as well as stupid?” he said. “This SS badge. It’s supposed to resemble a double lightning flash. I wish I’d known this before. Really, Max, it was most remiss of you not to mention it until now. You know, I’ve a good mind to have you shot.”
Instinctively, Max let go of the reins, snatched off his cap and bowed gravely.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “Really I am. You’re right. I should have mentioned it.”
But the captain was laughing. “I was only joking, Max,” he said. “Lighten up a little. Don’t be so serious.”
“Oh. I see.” He tried to smile, but this just looked like he was showing his teeth, which were sharp and yellow, and the tall horse backed away from the old man suddenly, as if he was worried that the old man was going to bite his withers.
“Steady, boy,” said the captain, adjusting his seat. “Easy, Molnija.” And mistaking the reason for the horse’s display of nerves, he added, “I wouldn’t really have him shot. Not old Max. Not after all the faithful service he’s given us.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“His mangy, substandard, rootless horses, on the other hand. They’re a very different story.”
“What do you mean?” asked Max.
“Didn’t I say before? The Przewalski’s are now proscribed—a forbidden breed—and as such are to be destroyed.”
“You can’t mean that.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s not up to me, Max. In all matters of race and species, the SS Main Office makes the decisions. And I’m afraid that, in the case of the Przewalski’s horses, Berlin has ordered me to complete the work that nature has started, Max. To remove from the animal population of the Greater German Reich what is, after all, a biologically unfit species, in order to protect the line of decent domesticated horses—like Molnija here—from possible contamination by your wandering pit ponies. It’s all part of our eastern master plan for the destruction of Ukrainian and Asian culture so that you people can be properly Germanized. Really, you should welcome this, Max. After all, the way you speak, you’re almost a German yourself. Perhaps not to look at. I’ll grant you that. Your appearance leaves a great deal to be desired. You’re almost as ugly as those slitty-eyed, steppe-wandering nags of yours.”
Max started to protest, to say that what Berlin had ordered would be a crime, but then he stopped and reminded himself that the extinction of a rare species of horse—compared to all the terrible crimes against humanity that Captain Grenzmann and his men had already committed in this part of Ukraine—might not count for very much in the eyes of anyone who wasn’t a zoologist or, like Max himself, someone who just loved Przewalski’s horses for themselves.
“A couple of specimens are to be shipped to Berlin,” continued Grenzmann, “so that Reich Marshal Göring can hunt them on his estate at Carinhall. He’s quite a collector himself, you know. But the rest of the Przewalski’s horses are to be rounded up and shot here without further delay.”
“Sir, it’s not their fault that they’re almost extinct. It’s ours. Mankind’s. If it wasn’t for us, there would still be substantial numbers of these horses in existence.”
“Look, there’s no point in arguing about this, Max. The decision has already been made. Tomorrow we start the process of eradication.”
The captain rode off.
MAX SPENT ALMOST THE whole night awake, wondering what to do. He sat in front of his fire, smoked several pipes and stared into the flames, asking himself what the baron would have done if he had been there. As a German aristocrat who was used to being obeyed, the baron would probably have reasoned with the captain; possibly he might have persuaded the SS captain that Germany had effectively lost the war and that there was little point in adding yet another terrible crime to his country’s already ignominious account. The captain might have listened, too; the baron was a very persuasive man. But Max was not the baron, and try as he might to think of something, he finally concluded that really there was nothing he could do. Nothing that would have worked anyway.